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Musk And Zuckerberg Spar Over Artificial Intelligence

Elon Musk has long said artificial intelligence could be dangerous to humans. But Mark Zuckerberg argues the benefits of AI are too great to ignore.
Posted at 3:49 PM, Jul 25, 2017

Billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have been trading barbs over each others' understanding of artificial intelligence.

Musk has argued AI could pose an existential threat to humans — an idea that we've already seen on the big screens thanks to Hollywood.

He's called AI "the scariest problem" and said robots would eventually be able to do everything better than humans.

But earlier this week, in a Facebook Live video, Zuckerberg disagreed with Musk's concern.

Zuckerberg said: "I have a hard time wrapping my head around that. Because if you're arguing against AI, then you're arguing against safer cars that aren't going to have accidents. And you're arguing against better being able to diagnose people when they're sick. I just don't see how in good conscience some people can do that."

Musk responded to that comment with a tweet, calling Zuckerberg's understanding of the subject "limited."

All drama aside, AI has caused split reactions from other respected scientists and tech gurus.

Some, like Neil deGrasse Tysonaren't scared of the future of AI and argue the technology could be good for humans if it's managed well.

But others, like Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking, agree with Musk that AI is worth concern.

In 2015, Hawking and Musk joined thousands of others in an open letter, warning autonomous weapons could lead to a "global AI arms race."